The Lost Cross
by damnitjane
Summary: Lisbon loses her cross necklace chasing down a suspect. Jane helps her find it.


She set off at a run, her gun held down by her hip. Behind her, she could hear Jane's footfalls, trying to catch up with her. In the tall, weedy grass, she could just make out the suspect ahead of her, his arms pushing the neck length shrubs aside as he went deeper into the long field.

"Stop!" she commanded him, pulling at the sharp branches snapping back in her face. "Stop running!"

There was a sound in front of her, and she heard the suspect groan as the twigs and branches crumbled as he fell to the ground. Lisbon lifted her Glock and held steady; her eyes falling to the man laying in the weeds, bleeding. She reached down to her waist and pulled the cuffs out as she brought his hands behind his back.

"Teresa!" she heard Jane cry out, his voice somewhere in the distance. "You all right?"

"Yeah!" she shouted back, pulling the suspect to a sitting position. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that over 85% of suspects who run get caught quickly?"

The suspect mumbled a nondescript reply as Lisbon led them both back through the path they left in the overgrown field.

"I think you would be embarrassed to tell people a 5'5, 115 pound woman caught you."

She met up with Jane halfway back. She couldn't help but notice that he had bits of trees and leaves and needles in his blonde curls, and his suit was ripped in several areas. Subsequently, she was sure he had fallen a few times. He looked scared, but as soon as he saw her, his expression changed to relief and pride.

"I'm glad you're okay!" he stepped forward and brushed a scratch on her cheek with the pad of his thumb.

"Yeah, you, too," she told him, her hand flying automatically to her neck, as it often did when she needed to feel the strength it gave her.

Lisbon's breath caught in her throat when her fingers only scraped skin instead of the cool metal of the cross she always wore...the one her mother gave her before she died.

"No!"

"Teresa, what is it?" asked Jane, watching her stop in her tracks and grabbing at her neck with her fist.

"Jane, it's gone! My cross! It's gone!"

He watched as she frantically looked around her on the ground, letting go of the suspect. Jane reached out to grab him by the arm before he could run again.

"Teresa, please calm down," he pleaded, watching her panic rise. "It has to be here. It probably got stuck on a branch or something. We'll find it."

"Do you have the keys to the handcuffs?"

Lisbon reached in her jeans pocket and produced the silver key, throwing it to Jane and watching as he removed one handcuff from the perpetrator, walking him over and wrapping the man's free arm around a large, trunked tree and slapping the cuffs on his wrist once more, making it so he was hugging the tree and could not escape. He pocketed the key and turned to Lisbon, who was now crouching down and brushing the ground with her hand in search of her lost cross.

Jane knelt beside her, pressing a hand to her back and watching her face as she desperately searched.

"Teresa," he called softly. "I promise you we will find it. It has to be here somewhere."

"My mom gave it to me, Jane," she told him, standing up quickly and swiping at the low hanging branches, bending them down to see if the necklace had caught on a stub.

"I know," was all he replied.

"Before … before she died, she gave it to me," she told him, turning to him this time and trying to contain her emotions. "She said, 'Teresa, this has always made me feel safe and loved, and I think you should have it'."

Jane sighed and pulled her to him, his hand finding either side of her face and kissing her forehead.

"I'm sorry."

"It's all the memories I have of her, Jane. The cross is the last thing she touched before she walked out the door!"

There were tears, now. They flowed out of her eyes and down her cheeks. Jane reached out with the pads of his thumbs and wiped them away, her small sobs shaking her body intensely.

He knew she never took it off. Not for showers or sleeping … she never took it off. He knew she was afraid of losing it, but also it was of great comfort to her to have near her.

Jane glanced at the suspect and then at Lisbon. He knew there was no way the suspect could escape from the way Jane had him apprehended. He silently reached down and took a hold of her hand, leading her forward from where she had emerged.

"Come on," he told her. "We are going to look for it. I'll help."

He felt her squeeze his fingers as they drifted, poked, pulled and lifted branches that were hitting them in the face. He was determined that he would find that necklace. He wouldn't let this happen to her. She was a good woman, and good people don't deserve to have the one thing that brings them peace taken from them. He knew that all too well, glancing down at his ring and knowing how he'd feel if he lost it.

"I haven't taken it off since I came out of training," she told him, pushing a tree with needles away from her. "Even then, I put it in a safe place."

"It means a lot to you," replied Jane. "It's understandable. Teresa, I feel the same way about you. You're like that necklace, you know."

She said nothing, so he continued, looking at the ground for if the cross was lying in his path.

"If you ever got lost or I couldn't find you, I'd be doing what you are now. I would search all over until I found you."

"Jane," she whispered through a thick voice. "If we don't find it…"

"Shhh," he hushed.

They walked a little further up the dirt floor, when Jane caught sight of what they were looking for. In a tree branch a few feet from them, the necklace hung, blowing in a slight breeze and shining in the dull, filtered light from above.

"There!" he told her, pointing to it.

He reached the branch and lifted the cross from it, rubbing it to clean the smudge of dirt on one of the sides of the cross.

"Oh, my God!" Lisbon exclaimed, reaching into his palm and taking the necklace, scanning it for any imperfections.

The only imperfection on it was the chain was broken slightly, but Lisbon was just happy to have it back again. She hugged it to her heart and then turned to Jane, giving him a hug and a kiss for his efforts.

"You found it!" she cried, clinging to him as she pressed the cross into her palm tightly. "My mom's cross."

"I think she gave it to you, so it's your cross, but her memory within it," Jane told her, turning her around and making their way back to the suspect still handcuffed to the tree. "Like this ring."

He held up his hand to show his wedding band. She understood.

Making their way back through the brush once again, Lisbon took another look at her cross and then looked at Jane.

Somehow, it seemed a sign from her mother that Jane found the cross. It was used for comfort and safety, but when it was lost, it was Jane that became her comfort and her safety.

Jane was another thing she couldn't lose. And she didn't plan on it.


End file.
